RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) For those of your wondering, I have another update about my back!  Aren't you excited!

I believe I mentioned that I was going to have to have an MRI done.  I've had numerous scans done because of my lungs, so I wasn't worried about that bit of it at all.  At least I wasn't worried until they called me back and handed me a booklet that just so happened to mention that people who are claustrophobic might have a problem.  Sigh.  Nice.

I had thought it would be an open MRI, but I was mistaken.  However, I put on my brave pants and decided that since it was only my neck that would be scanned, I'd mostly be outside of the machine and would be able to stand it.  The radiologist gave me a set of big, 1970s DJ earphones and said we would listen to the new Loretta Lynn album and everything would be over in 10 minutes. So I lay down on the cot and the lady got me settled, handed me a panic button, and then she inserted me into the depths of Hell's belly button.

Y'all, it is well established that I am violently claustrophobic. I've gotten claustrophobic is small places and I've gotten claustrophobic in huge places that just happened to be full of people.  The only, and I swear the only, way I'm usually able to handle it is if I can convince myself that I can get out if I have to.  Sometimes I have to literally get up and leave, but mostly as long as I know I CAN leave, I can deal.  When she slid that cot into the MRI machine, I was in there up to my knees. I think I was in there for 14 years, and every second of that time I was in a state of high adrenaline fight or flight mode. I immediately started to panic, but I stayed still because I knew if I freaked out and pressed the panic button, they'd just stuff me back into the machine. I clamped my eyes shut and counted forwards and backwards, tried self hypnosis, and did everything I could to stay calm.  At least 10 times I came within an inch of screaming and clawing my way out of the thing, but I barely managed to stay inside. She finally slid the cot out, and it was only when I tried to stand up that I realized those giant earphones were attached to clamps that basically had my head in a vice.  If I had known that, I really don't think I could have stayed in there.  At least before, I thought I could get out, but if I'd known I was clamped in, I would have probably Hulk-smashed my way out of the thing and gone running off into the night.  After it was over, I shook for a solid hour.  It was terrible.

But the scans turned out to be super awesome.  I saw my spinal cord and medula oblongata, and also saw that my disks are slightly bulging into the spinal cord, which is less awesome, but still, the fact that I can see it is pretty neato. I even got to keep the scans, so when we finally get another chair and can have a friend over, I'mma pull those things out and show them off like vacation slides!

2) So, my blue funk has faded a bit and now it's just sort of a dingy gray, but the funk it still around.  At least now I can make complete sentences and just look at otters on my own.  I don't need to post them here.  I hate feeling like this, but I still can't seem to shake it off.  (Cue Taylor Swift.)  I don't know.  I'm ok sometimes, when I'm distracted or talking to someone, and other times I just sit staring at the wall and feeling sad.  Haha, it sounds weird to type it out like that.  Very emo of me, no? The weirdest part of it is that my music is gone. That has happened twice before, and it came back, but it's really quiet in here when it's gone.

I've mentioned that I don't like to feel feelings anymore. One day, when I don't feel so weird and protective about it, I'll explain why so that you folks will get that it isn't just something I say and you will understand me a bit better. All I know is that I usually have my armor on and it protects me and I can just let it all bounce off. I get dented, of course, but not too badly.  Sometimes, though, something just whacks against me hard enough, my armor falls apart and I open up like a busted can of biscuits and feelings go everywhere. With a bit of perseverance (and duct tape) you can eventually get the biscuits back in the can, but it takes a while and stuff gets messy.  I'm in the process.

Thanks to those of you who were concerned, though. I appreciate it. I'll be fine. I always am!

EDIT: Heh...I'm a busted up can of emotional biscuits.  Emotional Biscuits is going to be the name of my new band. 

3) So, yuck, enough of that.  Look! Puppies!

4) I went to see a movie by myself the other day!  I've done that once, years ago, because I got stood up for a date and figured maybe the whole evening shouldn't be a complete loss.  Steve was working last weekend, so I decided I'd go see 10 Cloverfield Lane because I wanted a excuse to get out of the house.  It wasn't bad.  It was more like an episode of the Twilight Zone, or X-Files than a movie, but it was entertaining.  I've realized I don't mind going to movies alone, but it is better when you have someone to talk to afterwards so that you can pull yourself out of it a bit. That is true, especially when the movie is creepy, and this one was.

At any rate, to date, I have finished an entire tube of Chapstick on my own without losing it, and I went to see a movie alone!  At this point, I might as well run for President because I'm on a roll!

I've been in sort of in a blue funk and I can't seem to shake it off.  So today we get otters. One cute "hug me" otter and one "grumpy otter." The grumpy one looks like I just told him I failed Algebra even after he spent a lot of evenings tutoring me.

(Steve's grandma used to make the same face that the grumpy otter is making.)

AN UPDATE

A couple of entries ago, I mentioned that I'd hurt myself somehow, probably last year, and had probably pinched a nerve in my back.  It only made sense, seeing at how my arm was going numb and everything was tingling.  Even the DPT I know said it was probably just a twisted disc or something similar, so when I went to my GP and he told me to go see an orthopedic (I think I said an osteopath, but I didn't know the difference) doctor, I figured that I'd be directed to the nearest chiropractor and be popped back into place!  Easy peasy.
Not so much, actually!

Yesterday I had my appointment. I honestly had no idea what was going to happen (I made sure to wear decent underwear just in case) but all they did was take some X-rays of my spine.  It was actually a bit anticlimactic, to be honest, but they took the things and sent me back into the exam room to wait on the doctor.  By this point, I was feeling as though I'd been repeatedly stabbed in my neck with a butter knife, but I had faith that they'd come in and twist me around a bit and fix it all.

The doc came in showed me my x-rays (I have lovely bones, just so you know) and as it turns out, I had not hurt myself and my problem is just a tiny bit more complicated than a pinched nerve.  It took her less than a minute to figure out what was wrong. She pointed out that my cervical vertebrae (which were way, WAY higher up in my body than I had thought) had a problem. Apparently, I have degenerative disc disease, arthritis and bone spurs! All in my neck!  That's kind of an embarrassment of riches.  You'd think stuff like that would get spread around in my body more.  She also pointed out how straight my spine was.  I was a tiny bit flattered until she said that was because my muscles were pretty much in a state of pissed off contractedness, which is a bad thing.  She did tell me, happily, that she didn't think I'd need surgery, but that they'd treat me with anti inflammatory drugs, muscle relaxers, and epidurals.

Haha, no. I know what an epidural is and I don't think I want that unless there is just no other way.

The muscle relaxers were a bit of a letdown, but the anti inflammatory thing works well for a while.  I also get to have another MRI done tonight, but at least this time they don't have to inject me with anything, so SCORE!

So what does all this mean?  Well, it could mean nothing.  The pain can just go away on its own. That would be number one on my wish list!

It can also mean I might have to be on medication forever, which would be OK as long as it helps.

It might also mean I will eventually lose the ability to do fine work with my hands if the nerves that are currently being irritated get damaged, which would be sad, but it would keep all of you from having to pretend to like the stuff I make for you!  Honestly, how much more jewelry and crochet can you really be polite about?

I might also eventually end up in a wheelchair, which would suck, but I'd save so much money on buying new shoes!

In a nutshell, I have a whole spectrum of possibilities!  I'll actually find out more next week when I got back to see the doctor.  Let's hope it's a lot more of the pain going away on its own and a lot less of the wheelchair thing. That's what I'm hoping anyway.

So, you know, finding out all of this was just a cherry on top of one of the best weeks ever for me!  If it gets any better, I'm going to be tempted to fling myself in front of a train out of sheer delight!

I did find a silver lining, though!  If I wind up not being able to use my hands for things, I'm one step closer to that helper monkey I'm always talking about!

I'm going to name him Henry.

EVEN MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I've had time to think about my theory of mental time travel, and I know...I KNOW...it has flaws. All kinds of cause and effect problems come to the forefront, not to mention that if we will have the ability in the future to mentally influence people to do stuff, why hasn't someone made Hitler jump off of a roof?  There are obvious flaws.

I still stand by it.  Otherwise, I can't explain some of my past actions.  Don't judge me.

2) Today is Leap Day and I'd like desperately to do a fun thing that I've never done before.  You know, because Leap Day. I can't explain, it just seems right, so let's go with it.  However, I can never think of anything. I get a mental block. No joke, I can think of a thousand things when I don't have the time or the reason, but I go blank otherwise.  It's frustrating.

At any rate, I'll be taking suggestions. Keep it clean.

3) Do you remember last summer when I talked about having a bad reaction to some medication that I was taking? It was because of a change in manufacturer or because they switched me to a generic brand, but it all boiled down to the fact that the medicine had different ingredients. One of the things that the medicine did to me was make my ears ring, and even though I got switched back to the old medicine, it hasn't stopped. It's like high pitched sleigh bells ringing in my head all of the time. It's become so constant that it's become normal to me. It doesn't keep me from hearing other things, but when I'm in a quiet room, it's all I can hear. Yes, I finally told my doctor about it last week. I didn't say anything before because it's such a normal thing now that I forget about it until it's driving me crazy.

Anyway, this morning when I woke up, the ringing was super loud. I think it was because it was so quiet in the house, but I finally just said aloud "Gah, I wish the ringing in my ears would stop!" Steve rolled over and said "Well, maybe you should answer it."

...maybe I should answer it.

4) Well, that isn't a good thing.

I HAVE A THEORY

Bear with me.

Last night as I was falling asleep, I was thinking about the people that I've met during my life so far that I immediately felt a connection with.  You know what I mean, right?  You meet someone, and it doesn't feel like you are strangers getting to know each other, but like you are old friends that are just catching up? You get that feeling of "Oh, there you are! I've been waiting on you!"  That has happened to me a wonderful few times, as well as the opposite where I've met people and immediately disliked them for no discernible reason. 

So I have this theory...

What if, sometime in the future, someone has developed a type of non-corporeal time travel.  You can't physically travel in time, but you can contact yourself mentally (or maybe someone else can connect to you mentally for whatever reason) and although you don't get completely clear messages, you can at least get feelings about stuff if you have the right kind of psyche.  So, let's say, my future self wants to go back to experience being a kid or teenager again and in the inexact science that time travel would be (of course) the day that I land on happens to be the day I meet a certain person.  Obviously, my future self would know this person and have warm (or icky) feelings about them from the experience of knowing them, and since I can't get clear thoughts, I only get that feeling of either happiness or disgust! Maybe some people can "hear" more clearly than others and so that's why you never question certain situations. Why do I like and trust this person immediately? I don't know, it's just the way it is!  Why do you want to punch this person in the neck even though you just met them? Who knows?  Just go with it!

That would also explain why sometimes you might do stuff that makes perfect since at the time, but completely confuses you later on when you think about it! You aren't being controlled by someone, exactly, but something just seems like a good idea at the moment and you make a decision based on that idea. Since the person time traveling in your head can't stay there forever, when they're gone, you don't know why you felt that way to begin with.  It makes sense.

Of course, that opens up the idea that people are mentally time traveling for important reasons, like, certain people have to meet because the butterfly effect of their meeting and being friends causes certain things to happen that are important in the future.  Maybe there are bad guys who mentally time travel, too, and they get people to do bad things, and then good guys have to mentally time travel to get people to do good things so that the future isn't destroyed!

So I tell Steve about this when he comes to bed and he pointed out that the fact that I have come up with this theory out of nowhere, I may be accidentally getting a message too clearly and understanding the whole time travel thing could cause irreparable damage to the future. Or....or..maybe since I'm writing about it here, some random person (hello, future time travel pioneer!) will take this idea and create the technology to actually make it happen!  (Name it after me!)

So, if I have accidentally created a rift in the space time continuum, I apologize.  If I've given someone the idea of non-corporeal, mental time travel, you're welcome. :)

You know...I like my going-to-sleep thoughts much better than my suddenly-waking-up thoughts.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Boo.  I had gotten a really neat opportunity and had gotten kind of excited about it, but it didn't work out. A man I worked with at the Sprocket (ptooey) had been a long time, local TV news reporter before he worked there, and after he left, he jumped right back into reporting. We'd always gotten along really well when we worked together.  I'm friends with him on Facebook and he often mentions stories that he's working on.  Last week he sent out a casting call, of a sort, asking for volunteers to film a recreation of something that had to do with a story he was working on. It wasn't a big thing, but it sounded interesting. He needed a woman "between 35-40 with average build" who wouldn't mind that their face wouldn't be completely shown on screen.

It was like he was casting for my autobiography! Haha!

I volunteered. Actually, what I told him was that I was the right age, and even though I didn't know how average my build was (rowr) it should be fine, and that my face is at it's best when you can't see it in it's entirety! He said I'd be perfect for it and he explained everything and told me he'd let me know when the filming would be and then I didn't hear anything else. I kind of figured out that he probably didn't need me to do it anymore, but since he'd never said anything, I sent him a message.  He said management took over and they did the filming two days earlier so the story could run the next week.  Huh, well, thanks for letting me know! I wasn't mad or anything. As I said, I'd started to get the idea that they didn't need me when I didn't hear from him, but you'd think he'd have said something before I had to ask.  Eh, oh well.  I was a little disappointed, of course, but really only because it's so rare that I step out of my comfort zone voluntarily that it seemed like kind of a waste that I'd done it for something that didn't pan out.

At any rate the story is very interesting!  You can find out all about it here! 

Just think, that dark silhouette could have been me!  :)

2) I have hurt myself, yet again.  Actually, I think I probably hurt myself sometime last year and have slowly and carefully exacerbated the problem until it has how began causing me problems on a daily basis! Yay, me! For the past few weeks, my shoulders and left arm have been hurting. I thought I was getting the flu for a few days, but then my arm and hand started going numb in stages. I probably would have freaked out over my heart again if my back hadn't started prickling at the same time.  I'm fine unless I have to sit for long periods of time, which, unfortunately, is what I do everyday. The only way I could relieve the pain was lying down on the ground and stretching my arm out as far as it could go.  It felt like I needed to pop my back but I couldn't.  I tried, though!

My boss' daughter is a DPT, and Steve told me to ask her what I should do. I  didn't want to because it makes me uncomfortable to ask professional people to give me free advice, so he told her what was going on (when I wasn't there and couldn't object) and she was very cool about it.  She sat me down after church and started feeling around my spine. She found the spot that hurt and pressed on it. It was unpleasant. She told me I had some kind of disk torsion (or something, I don't know) and told me to talk to my doctor (I had an appointment the next day) about it.  Of course, she was thumb-deep in my spinal cord at the time, so if she'd told me to put a live ferret down my shirt and dance the Macarena, I'd have agreed!

She also put KT Tape on my back, which weirdly helped a lot.  I don't know how it works, but it did help. She told me I could leave it on for as long as I wanted, but to take it off it it started to hurt or itch. I left it on all day yesterday, but by that evening, it was itchy. I wanted to pull it off, but it didn't want to come off. It REALLY didn't want to come off. I'd resigned myself to living with tape on my back for the rest of my life, but finally just gritted my teeth and pulled it off.  It would have been easier to pull off my own face, and I dare say, it would have hurt less.  I feel like I've got a terrible sunburn on my back and I can't get all of the glue off of myself.  Yuck.

At any rate, My doctor is referring me to an osteopath to make sure no nerves are getting damaged and hopefully my arm will stop going numb! Yay!

3) I've been getting steady freelance design work lately!  Woo-Hoo!  I had forgotten how much I enjoy making things pretty. I just finished a wedding invitation for someone Steve knows.  I had a lot of fun with it, but I have to say, wedding invitations can be complicated. I spent DAYS on the set of drafts that I did, and I came up with six things I thought were kind of awesome! I remembered at the last second that she'd sent me an example of one she'd liked online, so I threw together something similar for her so that she'd know I hadn't forgotten it, and of course, the one I spent the least amount of time on was the one she picked!  Haha!  Oh, well, she's happy with them, so I'm happy.

I've also been working with another bride who's family has the potential to throw some professional design work my way, so I hope I can keep her happy, too!  :)  I'll be working on her stuff during my free time this week. I'm in wedding stuff up to my eyeballs.

My only problem is that when I bill these clients, I do not charge them nearly enough. I need to figure out how that works. I don't want to over charge, but I want to be fair to myself, too.  Eh, I'll figure it out one of these days. 

A SHAMEFUL STORY

To my knowledge, I have never told this story on my blog. I'm not even sure I've told people in real life. It's time. My shame can no longer be contained.

This painting is probably the only piece of legitimate art I have in my house.

 

I love this painting. I am not usually a fan of this style, but something about it just spoke to me. It also was a perfect match for the wall color in my office.  It doesn't look like it in the picture, but it compliments  beautifully. I've had it for almost 10 years.

My problem is that I only own it because I stole it.

I didn't mean to steal it.  I didn't even realize I had stolen it, at the time.

When I was in college getting my art degree, we had a very small art building. That's not so unusual at a college that's main purpose is churning out astrophysicists and engineers, but because of that, space was kind of an issue. When I came back to school for my last year, I walked into the lounge area of the building and saw that a lot of projects were piled everywhere. Mostly it was drawings, but there were a couple of paintings and this one caught my eye. The frame was peeling and there was a hole in the canvas, but I immediately wanted it. I couldn't read the signature, and I didn't know anyone in painting classes anyway, so I went to the office and asked the lady in there who the art belonged to and why it was in the lounge. I don't remember her exact words, but I do remember she basically said it didn't belong to anyone and was art that had been graded and that students had left behind over the summer. I know I asked her again if it belonged to anyone, and I know she said no.  Trust me, I'm way too paranoid to just assume something is free to be taken.  So I went and got the painting and took it home.  Over that semester, when art would get piled into the lounge, I'd sift through it and take stuff I liked.  Free art!  Woo!

My last semester of school, I walked into the lounge to see if anything interesting had been left in there over the break. The room was completely bare of any art. I was disappointed, of course, but I didn't think much of it until later on when I overheard someone asking where last semester's projects were being kept, and heard the reply that they were now in a locked room because stuff had gone missing.

SHAME!

I literally had no idea that the artwork that I was taking wasn't just left over, it was final project type stuff, which is usually a big deal and had been left there over the summer because it was being graded and there was no other place to put them! I had just been going in there and taking whatever I wanted, when there was a pretty good chance that the artist didn't get a chance to decide if they wanted to keep it or not!  Without realizing it, I was Thomas Crowning the sh*t out of the art department.  I almost died, right then and there, and in a perfect world I would have confessed and brought everything back. I didn't. I was too embarrassed.  I think I just went home and got rid of everything I hadn't given away, except for that painting.

It's still hanging on my wall in the same place it's been this whole time. Judging me.

Now you know that, at one point in my life, I was a prolific art thief and I never got caught!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Happy birthday to me!  Well, yesterday, anyway.

Yes, I am now a woman of a certain age and that age is 38.  I'm no longer the young, beautiful, blushing spring flower that I once was. Pardon me while I weep in a corner.  *SOB*

Nah, just kidding! I'm still pretty awesome. Actually, I've got 38 years of awesome built up, so I'd say it's a fairly significant amount of awesome. 

My birthday was good. It was a good day. It wasn't the most exciting birthday I've ever had, but that may be because it was a Sunday and it was cold, and I was not feeling well.  I did manage to make it through the day without any major disaster, so at least that's a thing!  I went to church in the morning, had lunch with Mr. Lee and Steve that afternoon, and spent the rest of the day at home relaxing. 

The church was showing a movie last night and it was one I flat out refused to sit through. One day I'll explain why, when I'm not ashamed of myself. So I got it all ready except for pressing "PLAY" on the machine and left it to someone else so I could spend the rest of my day in my pajamas.  I know... pajamas, but it was just too cold here not to wear pants.

I'd actually been celebrating on and off since Friday, when my mom, sister and I went to lunch and went shopping. We usually do that together before our birthdays.  It was a lot of fun!  That night we also got to have dinner and watch TV with Anthony, who I've missed a lot since he changed jobs and he's been too busy to hang out much. 

Saturday was kind of a weird-ass day, but only because I think I experienced every emotion a person can have, all in the space of a couple of hours.  True story!  Steve and I were out, doing Saturday stuff and went from having an argument in a Cracker Barrel (well, not so much an argument as it was a misunderstanding. We didn't cause a scene and throw syrup or anything.) to laughing and joking five minutes later, to me getting frustrated as I ran all over town looking for something that apparently isn't sold until spring, getting my feelings hurt by a rather rude shop owner who didn't seem to feel I belonged in her store, and then I UGLY cried, and that is not an exaggeration, over a dog Steve wanted to bring home from an adopt-a-thon (he was a 12 year old dog named Augustus, and we can't have a dog right now for several reasons and I had to be the voice of reason about it, but the idea that we were leaving him behind and alone unhinged me for a while. Do you have any idea how hard it is to drive when you are full on weeping? Very hard! Oh, and just in case you're worried, if he is still not adopted by July, we're going back to get him.) THEN, less than an hour after I got home and calmed down from the dog thing, I got flowers delivered, which made me happy.  I honestly don't remember the rest of the day, because that was too many feelings to process in such a short amount of time and I think my brain shorted out.

On my actual birthday, lots of people at church very kindly remembered my birthday, and of course, my Facebook friends and family told me happy birthday, which is always nice.  So, all in all I either saw, spoke to, or got texts (and a video) from the people I love the most in the world and I don't know how things can really get much better than that! 

In light of full disclosure, there was one tiny thing that didn't go my way.  It's so stupid and personally embarrassing that I'm not going to tell you what it was, but it really was such a dumb, little, truly unimportant-in-the-scheme-of-all-things thing that I'm sorry I let it bring down my day even a little.  You know how sometimes little stuff can sometimes take on huge proportions when you think about them too much?  That's what it was.  I just wanted a certain thing to happen, and it didn't. I could have probably forced the issue, but I didn't want to, and got upset that no one read my mind.  It was really silly.  I think if I hadn't had so many other good things happen, it might have upset me more, but even then, it was a dumb thing to get upset over.

Stuff like that is the just way I'm made.  Really, it's because without those little flaws, the gods would get jealous and destroy me in a truly spectacular way. It's best for everyone that those flaws exist. :)

So anyway, let's see what my 38th year has in store. I hope it's lots of good things! Keep your fingers crossed for me! 

A QUICKIE

I woke up in the wee hours of the morning with the absolute worst feeling. I don't know what I was dreaming, but it must have been awful to wake up feeling like that.  It was all muzzy and unformed and I couldn't protect my brain from it because I wasn't all the way awake.

It was like my family leaving me at the airport on purpose with no way home and no way to call anyone to come and get me and no money for a cab, and even if I could get someone to let me borrow a phone, no matter who I called, no one would admit to leaving me at the airport.  It's the way I feel when I have the panic dreams where no one will give me a straight answer to my questions. Bleh.  It was irrational and panicky and I literally started picking apart everything I'd done and said in the past week or two to try and figure out what I'd done to make everyone hate me. I felt completely abandoned, and it didn't help that Steve had gotten up to get a drink, so when I did wake up I actually was alone. I even started composing apology letters to people in my head, just in case.

I even made Steve talk to me about what I could have done when he finally came back to bed, and trust me, he hates my irrational fears and the fact that I need to talk about them sometimes!

I know that none of this makes sense.

I'm not the only person I know that this happens to. It's a weird thing and I hate it!  I wonder why it never happens that we wake up in the middle of the night and think "Hey, remember that time you did this awesome thing? Oh, and think of all the people who love you and think you're great! You were really funny the other day. Your friends would never in a million years abandon you without closure or even get angry without explaining why! Bask in the warmth and safety of your life! You've never once made a truly bad decision, and even if you had, it won't ruin everything!"  Heh. That would be nice!

No, it's always the worst things that pop into my head.

Buuuuuut....at least I was sufficiently awake to decide to go to the gym super early.  So, silver lining?

Haha, I hate morning brain!




Just in case, though... please still love me! I didn't do it, whatever it was, on purpose! Probably. :)

A QUICKIE

I don't know about you, but cold weather makes me hungry for warm things.

It was snowing and yucky on my way to work, so I couldn't stop anywhere and get breakfast because my windshield had started freezing over (my heater was having one of it's not working days) and I wanted to get to work before I couldn't see anymore.

I had food in my bag, so I didn't starve or anything, but it was all cold and my brain is now telling the rest of me that it wasn't good enough and still wants something hot.

I'm not even hungry anymore, but I'd kiss someone right on the mouth if they'd bring me a biscuit.

(I think people may see that more of a threat than an enticement these days, but I'll at least leave it as an option.) 

MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I can't believe it's the second week of February already!  This is nuts.  My mother always told me that when you get older, time goes faster, and now I understand!  I think I've figured out the phenomena, though.

Every day is the same. Well, close enough, anyway!  I don't think I have ever realized this until I started working at the church.  I have such a regular set of things that I have to do each week that the days just blend into one another.  It's really kind of weird when you think about it.  I bet it's the same when you have to drive a lot for your work; just miles and miles of road that eat up your time and after a while, you stop seeing it.  I'm lucky to have the job I have, so no complaints exactly, but you do have to break things up a bit.  Luckily, I have a few things I do to make things more fun!  Otherwise I'd wake up and be 100 years old and have no idea what had happened!

2) Sorry, I'm just realizing that I'll be another year older soon and I'm trying to fight off the panic of getting old.  Well, older. I don't guess I'm old enough to be OLD just yet. I just start getting kind of breathless when I realize how old I am and that there are so many things I want to do! I've barely started!  *wheeze, wheeze, wheeze...uses inhaler...*

I'm going to have to start thinking about who I'm going to do for my midlife crisis soon!  Hee!

3) You guys, I have a problem. Ok, it isn't a real problem. Well sort of. It's a stupid thing, really, and also kind of embarrassing, but only in the sense that it's about underwear.  If you don't want to read about underwear, then you can skip this one.  I apologize.

Last Friday, I was shopping and I found myself in the lingerie section of a store. They didn't have what I'd specifically been looking for, but they did have lots of pretty bras and I like pretty bras!  They even had some in my size! It's rare enough to find pretty bras in the size I need that I tend to seize the moment and get them if I can.

Let me stop here and explain that, for those of you who don't know the actual, in person me, I have been blessed with what my sister refers to as bodacious tatas.  I don't know how bodacious they are, but there you go.  (*EDIT: I feel I need to be more clear, here. This is why I have trouble finding nice bras on my size. At a certain point, they either get prohibitively expensive because you have to go to special shops, or they go ugly industrial elastic and rubber, or porn-star stuff that I don't think would work under normal clothes. I'm not bragging or anything like that.)

Anyway, so I bought two of them and decided to wear one today, and although it's doing it's job admirably as far as keeping everything contained, the bra is creaking. It's creaking like an old wooden ship being rocked by waves. It's awful. Every time I move, I sound like an old rocking chair. I think it might be the wire inside rubbing against whatever the bra is made of, but it's embarrassing and I'm afraid to move around too much because it's loud enough for others to hear it!  I'm lucky that I work with people who have their own offices, but if I have to take something to them they're going to wonder why my boobs are creaking.  I'm sure there's a joke in this somewhere, but you'll have to figure it out for me.

4) Sometimes I am forcefully reminded that I am not enough. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else. I've never been enough. I guess something is missing. I wish I knew what. 

5) I have been slowly, but surely, clearing out my home office since Friday night.  Steve is installing some shelving in there that, hopefully, will alleviate the cluttering issue I have now.  It had gotten way out of hand.  I try to keep my books and art supplies in there, and I have a LOT of books and art supplies.  I had actually forgotten that it had once been a small dining room and was big enough for a family to eat in since there was very little room to move around!

While I was going through stuff, I found a lot of old pictures and things from my high school days. I had a nice little stroll down memory lane, although, something about looking at old pictures makes me melancholy.  I guess it's because so many of those people aren't a part of my life anymore, but even pictures of the good times always make me a bit sad.  That always happens.  Who knows why.  At any rate, I got a chance to look through a lot of my pictures of old friends and good times!  I even found my senior portraits and I can't believe how young I looked!  I also had some weird eyebrow game going, because in a lot of those pictures, I looked MAD.  Haha!  I always feel mentally that I'm still that age, but it's an unpleasant realization that I'm 20 years older when I look in the mirror!  I mean, I'm still really adorable, and have the bodacious tatas (ha) but still, I'm 20 years older.  At least my eyebrows aren't as angry! Silver linings!

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Allow me to rant for a second.  I'm sorry, I realize that the last thing you probably want on a Monday is to hear someone complain, but may I just reiterate how much I HATE IT when people ignore questions I have asked?  Not just tell me they can't answer me, but literally just not acknowledge I've asked anything?!  I just...I don't even understand why this is even a thing that happens!  It's so fucking rude.  Pardon my language, but it is.  It is bad mannered, rude, insulting and hurtful.  Basically, it's the same thing as someone telling me that I matter so little in the scheme of things that they don't even have to respond to me. It's bad enough in a personal conversation.  Actually, it's worse in a personal conversation because friends shouldn't do that to you, but it's infuriating in a work situation. If you work with people who think so little of you that they will ignore the things you say, then you should probably start looking for another place to work because they aren't even affording you the most basic respect you deserve.

If I were asking personal questions, or if I were out of line asking something, it would be one thing. I'd get that. If I'm going to ask what I think is a personal question, I always preface it with an option not to answer.  But FFS, just don't do that!  If you can't answer, or even if you prefer not to answer, say that much.  I'm literally having nightmares about this lately.  I used to have nightmares about people not listening to me when I had important things to tell them, but now the nightmares consist of me asking questions and people not answering me.  They just talk round and round and I have woken up in tears. I hate that SO MUCH.

Now, some of you are thinking that I'm overreacting, and maybe you don't care if people ignore you.  Give you a cookie. I don't know, maybe it is silly, but I do care and it is like a slap in the face. If there is something so wrong with me that I don't deserve to be acknowledged, I beg of you, please tell me.  I'm being 100% serious about that. TELL ME.  If I understand why this keeps happening, I can deal with it.  But it's like I'm invisible. I'm so tired of being invisible.

 Sorry.  I needed to get that off my chest. People suck.

2) Our power went off at work this morning!  It was fun, except that I was alone, and the church is big and it makes scary sounds when there are no other sounds to cover it up!  Luckily, I had brought the portable spotlight (or bright-ass flashlight) that Mr. Lee gave me for Christmas to replace the sad dollar store one we've had for a while. That kept the monsters away!  If it hadn't, it would have made a spectacular blunt object.

The only problem is that it seems to have fried our membership program, which is something we need to keep up with records.  I've been trying to fix it all morning, but the program is old and on the verge of no longer being supported. The only option of getting the program updated is subscribing to the new software which is on a cloud server, and that might not fly because they keep the membership stuff on a computer that isn't allowed to be connected to the internet.  I'm going to have to explain why this should be OK.  I don't look forward to it. I'm the only one who works here that seems to understand that software needs to be replaced occasionally.

3) We got snowed in on Saturday!  We were supposed to go on a road trip to Atlanta, but we had to cancel it. We actually had to go to buy something we needed for some kind of home project Steve is working on (and after the cluster frak that we had ordering parts online we decided to go to the actual store, the closest of which is in Atlanta.) After years and years of asking, I had FINALLY gotten Steve to agree to go to the Aquarium while we were there and then we had to cancel.  Boo. 

It was boring being stuck in the house, but it wasn't terrible.  Like I told a friend, at least I was warm and didn't have to wear pants most of the day! Silver lining!  Atlanta will still be there whenever we decide to go again.  Whether or not I can get Steve to the Aquarium will be another story! 

Shut up. I like looking at fishes. I was a mermaid in a former life.

It isn't that I don't want to jump. It's just that I am having trouble finding the edge.

MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) The University of Alabama won another college national championship game!  Good for them.  We didn't watch the whole thing, but we checked in on the score periodically!  We did watch the last part of the game, and if that was any indication, then I'm glad I didn't watch it all.  Football makes me tense!

My coworker, who I'm sure I've told you is a HUGE Alabama fan (maybe even more so than my father was, and he was the most die-hard fan I'd ever known) was thrilled, of course.  He came in with a big grin and an Alabama sweatshirt on.  He and the pastor stood and talked about the game for a while, but I managed to tune most of it out.  He's in there right now watching replays.  I hope this doesn't last the rest of the week.

2) Kind of related, but not really... There is a chance I've mentioned this before, but I'm not sure. I'm almost hesitant to mention it now because it's a bit crass, but I noticed this and now I can't unsee it. I blame the classes I had to take in art history for my perception of it and I apologize in advance if you immediately think I'm gross for it.  The college National Championship logo bothers me.  I know it's a stylized football. I KNOW THIS.  However, the more I look at it, the more it looks distractingly female.  More specifically, it looks like a yoni.  There are a lot of depictions of those in ancient art, and once I made the connection, I can't see it any other way. It's simultaneously funny and embarrassing.

3) I've been working hard on the wedding invitations that I talked about, and I've got several drafts so far! Yay!  I'd like to make a couple more, though, just to be safe.  I know that sounds crazy, but I'm always afraid that I'm going to hand over a bunch of drafts and they will not like ANYTHING.  I even flat out copied the one she sent me as an example (with minor changes, of course) so that she can't be completely dissatisfied with everything.  As silly as it probably sounds, doing any kind of creative work is nerve wracking. When you pull pictures or words out of your head for someone else to judge, it's a very vulnerable feeling.  It's like pulling out your liver (you know, to show someone who likes livers) and hoping that they don't say "Oh, that's a sub-par liver."  I mean, it's the only liver you have!  It's even worse when you can't get the stuff out of your head and translated onto a page.  Don't get me wrong, I love doing this sort of thing. When it all works out, it's a fantastic feeling, but when it doesn't, you can't help but feel like you will never be able to do anything creative again. 

Oh, such a tortured existence for an artist. :) Ha!

4)  We have a couple from our church getting married in the fall and they're so cute.  They are an older couple that have been dating for several years and finally decided to make it official!  There is something so sweet about older people deciding to get married.  I know that sounds a bit condescending, but I really don't mean it that way.  I mean, it's wonderful (and getting more rare) when people can get married young and stay married for a million years.  However,  I always think it's special when people who think that kind of thing is over and done with for themselves find someone else to love.  It's nice.  Hooray for love!*

*Yes, as jaded and cynical on that subject as I've been, you know I have to mean it to say it! :)   

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) You'll be either glad or disappointed to know that I never had to take another one of my anti-pain pills.*  I probably could have done, but I was always afraid I'd need to drive somewhere and I wouldn't have been in any state to do so.  I never actually found out what was wrong with me, but I guess it was good I went to the doctor just in case. I'm going to keep telling myself that, because otherwise I'm going to bring myself to the point of actually dying before I go back again.

*I originally called them "Pain Pills" but then realized that the name sort of implied that the pills caused pain instead of stopping it, so I changed it. Also, getting rid of unusued pain medication is complicated.  You can't just flush it away, apparently.  There are rules and stuff.  Oh, well.

2) Speaking of being on medication, I had to take Benadryl last night and it's almost noon and I haven't shaken off the floopiness yet. I wonder if I took too much?  The box wasn't in there with the medicine, so I wasn't sure.  I only took two, though.  That's normal, right? Two is usually normal. I'm still so logy and fuzzy headed, and also weirdly emotional for some reason.  No joke, I was checking my email to see if a friend had responded to something I sent, and there wasn't anything there, and I almost cried.  I don't know why.  I literally had to sternly remind myself that people have other stuff to do. Still, though, if anyone spoke sharply to me right now, I'd probably collapse in a puddle of tears. It's completely irrational.  I originally had to take the Benadryl because I broke out in a weird rash after eating some chocolate I got for Christmas. That has never happened before and I've had that particular kind of chocolate before as well.

I swear to God if I have become allergic to chocolate, I'll have to seriously consider whether life is still worth living.

3) Christmas was great, by the way.  We spent it with family and also had some quiet time and we watched the Doctor Who Christmas special.  We spent a very quiet New Years eve at home, but we had cookies and grape juice and things that made sounds.  We had champagne, but Steve has been sick and we didn't think it would be smart for him to mix alcohol with his meds.  I didn't think it would be smart to have a whole bottle of champagne to myself, seeing that I'd probably wind up topless on my neighbor's roof, so I stuck with grape juice, too.  I wish we'd been able to go someplace like we did last year, but we made it work.  My new year resolutions? Meet new things and try new people.

While I was making the cookies, I accidentally took the mixer out of the batter before the whirlygigs stopped spinning, and cookie goo went EVERYWHERE.  I had to change clothes. I also keep finding bits of cookie dough shrapnel in weird places.  My hand mixer must have a V8 in it.  The resulting cookies were delicious, though, so maybe I'm on to something!

4) I feel so bad!  One of my work responsibilities is to pay everyone.  I have spreadsheets that I copy over every year so that taxes and stuff are automatically deducted. I've never had a problem with them, but as we were closing out the books for the end of 2015, we noticed that the pastor's pay was way too much.  We couldn't figure out why, so when we went back and looked, we realized that for some reason his spreadsheet had a broken formula, and I hadn't been deducting his retirement at all last year.  I was still paying his retirement, but it wasn't coming from his salary like it should have been.  It never occurred to me to check the dang spreadsheet, because usually if a formula goes bad, there is some kind of error message.  Now he has to pay back the money I overpaid.  Well, the church wasn't going to require it, but he's honest and didn't feel right keeping it.  I feel terrible. :( 

I also had to do the taxes for the church employees, and while it's really not a terribly complicated thing, I'm always so scared I'm going to screw it up.  I started on them on Monday, and by the time I got home I was so stressed that I went to bed and pulled the covers over my head for a while like a 4 year old.  I wish I wasn't so useless!

5) I've got another freelance project that I'm getting ready to start on this month! I'm doing wedding invitations for the daughter of someone in Steve's band.  The wedding is in April, so I hope I haven't waited too late to start on them. Some people want everything well before they need to be sent, and I don't want the bride to freak out.  I'm kind of nervous about doing any design work since I couldn't even get an idea for the last thing I was asked to do, but I can probably handle this.  Hopefully!  Fingers crossed.

YOU CALL HIM DR. JONES, DOLL...

So...Saturday morning I woke up in a great amount of pain.  I won't elaborate too much, because when it comes to pain, elaboration isn't altogether necessary. Let's just say that it was somewhere in between "Wow, this is kind of bad" and "This is appendicitis and I need to go to the hospital."

I thought I could tough it out, honestly, because what are the chances that I'd wake up with appendicitis out of nowhere, really?  I figured that the pain would stop and I'd go about my day.  Only, it didn't stop.  It got a bit more bearable, but it didn't go away.  I think I've mentioned that I'm not the kind of person who goes to the emergency room for just anything (and the fact that I went to a walk-in clinic for what I thought was a heart attack should be proof enough) but this time I decided that I should probably go and get checked out.  I couldn't stand up straight and it felt like I was slowly being stabbed in my right side.  Granted, as the pain had lessened a bit, I knew I wasn't in immediate danger or anything, but if something inside of me is getting ready to explode, I thought it might be best to see about getting ahead of any unpleasantness.  I was determined to take a shower and put on clean clothes before going, so I (quickly) did that and we drove to the hospital.

We were taken back to a room impressively quickly, and I was immediately given an IV and had blood drawn.  Then I was given pain meds and everything got so shiny and bright.  They x-rayed me, gave me a CT scan, and then the doctor came in to talk to me.  The pain had quietened down a bit, so I wasn't in agony, but when the starting pressing down on my side, I felt like a water balloon on the brink of popping.  It was a weird feeling, but it wasn't terrible.  The doctor left us to wait until they could run tests and see what was going on, and that is how we were for several hours.  I kept thinking how embarrassed I was that I was at the hospital and wasn't hurting anymore, but Steve kept reminding me that I'd been given pain meds, so I shouldn't be hurting.

I have this fear, or if not a fear, a concern, that I'm going to end up being the kind of person who goes to the emergency room for absolutely no reason and waste everyone's time.  That is the main reason I always usually go to the walk-in clinic when something's wrong.  I know a lot of nurses, so I don't want to be an unnecessary burden on them in case someone who needs them more comes in.  I kept apologizing on the off chance that there was nothing wrong with me.  I'm sure they were annoyed, but they all assured me that it was better that I came in, just in case.  I just don't want to bother people.  That's pretty much the crux of the matter.

I'll be honest, though, I was expecting to be operated on that day.  Steve and I discussed all of the things that we might need to discuss in the event I needed surgery, my DNR preference, the go ahead to take out anything that needed to be taken out, and if I died, donate everything salvageable.  You know, the normal stuff.  I even gave him the info on how to implement my zombie apocalypse plan in case it happened while I was unconscious (I should have never watched the first episode of The Walking Dead. Also, pain meds are fun.)  We waited and waited, but no one came in to tell us anything.  We noticed that the ER doc who had seen me was Dr. Jones (unfortunately, his first name was not Indiana) and Steve started cracking Indiana Jones jokes that made me laugh, which didn't feel good, but it was good to laugh.  I'm not sure how long we were there, but the nurse came back in to tell me all of my tests were OK and I could leave.  They didn't explain the angry wolverine that had been trying to claw itself out of my abdomen earlier that day, which was disappointing.  I would have liked to know why that was happening.  They gave me  prescriptions for pain and anti-nausea medicine, I apologized again for any inconvenience, and we left.  So, I have no idea what happened to me Saturday morning, but I was pretty much OK by noon. I didn't hurt, but it felt like a balloon slowly inflating inside of me getting bigger and bigger. 

We went to Target to get the medicine, just in case, and I was still kind of high from the pain medicine they'd given me at the hospital. That was fun.  It wasn't too bad, because I think it had mostly worn off, but I know I texted a bit and maybe didn't make a lot of sense. I don't know, really.  Maybe no one else noticed!  I went home and slept a lot.  I didn't take a pain pill because I wasn't hurting, but I took one of the other ones.  Then I ate, which was a big mistake.  I spent the rest of the evening really, very unpleasantly.  I think it could have been a reaction to the medicine I'd taken, but I have no idea.

Sunday I woke up feeling like death on a stick, but I had to go to church and run the sound for the choir's Christmas cantata.  I was the only one who knew how to adjust the music, so I did that.  It wasn't terrible.  I wasn't in the same kind of pain I'd been in the day before, but mainly the "balloon" was still in there.  I decided that I wouldn't go to lunch with Steve and his dad, and instead went home where I slept for several more hours.  I'd even decided I wouldn't go back to church that night, because of the way I was feeling.  The balloon had been replaced by a feeling like I had been punched in the side and was having a pencil driven into me quite slowly, so I decided to take a pain pill.  I don't know what the pills are, but I know they aren't the really powerful ones.  I don't know what they are, but they WORK.  By the time Steve came home, I was not feeling any pain at all.  I also wasn't blinking, and with a bit of persuasion, I probably would have been convinced that I could have flown to church if I'd flapped my arms hard enough.  Apparently, I'm sensitive to this kind of stuff.  I told Steve that I was going to be fine, so he took me to church.

I don't think I have to tell you that I was only in the initial stages of feeling the effects of that pill when we got there.  I was cheerful, and not hurting, but I still wasn't blinking and the lights were so pretty.  I got steadily more "involved" with whatever I had taken as church went on.  I was running the sound and video system, which went OK at first, but the computer decided to switch off in the middle of things, and I slumped to the ground and scrabbled around with wires until I could make it work again. I had no idea what I was doing.  I also decided upgrading the computer to Windows 10 in the middle of service seemed like a great idea, even though I had no idea if our software was compatible.  By the time preaching got started, I was full on stoned.  I don't know how else to explain it.  All I could do is stare at the lights, and I had no idea what the pastor was talking about. I couldn't follow the music and I STILL wasn't blinking.  I got to the point where, had this been tequila instead of pain medicine, I would have had my top off and been sending rude Snapchats to everyone I knew.  I'm not kidding, I actually started thinking about doing just that, but thank the Lord and whatever pharmaceutical company that made my pills, it didn't disable my Jiminy Cricket voice.  That voice kept telling me "No, no, let's not do that, OK? This is neither the time nor the place."  I listened to that voice.

THANK GOD.

Today the balloon is back and it feels like I swallowed some staples, but I can't take anything until I get home because I have to drive.  I hope that I don't have to go back to the hospital.  Maybe not!  So that was my weekend!  Hope yours was as much fun! :)

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Last Saturday, a couple had a wedding at our church.  Well, technically, it was a vow renewal, but because they'd never had a church wedding, just a Justice of the Peace deal, they wanted to have something their friends and family could come to. Actually, it turned out to be a double vow renewal ceremony because the bride's son and his wife had also gotten married by a JotP and wanted to do it again in front of family and friends. Only no one they invited came.  Not one person.  Granted, it wasn't supposed to be a big, lavish deal or anything, but still.  I felt so bad.  I was their only wedding guest, and to be fair, I wasn't really a guest as much as I was a worker.  It was still a beautiful ceremony, though. The church is decorated for Christmas, the brides were beautiful, the grooms were handsome, and everything went well.  It was a very sweet wedding.

I don't mean to sound braggy by telling you this, but I actually did a lot for this wedding, and it's kind of funny when I look back on it.  I made the decorations for the reception, made the unity candles, played the music, controlled the lights, took the photos, laid out the food for the reception, served the drinks, caught the bouquet, ate with the two couples, cleaned up afterwards, and saw them off from the church!  Apparently, all of our dry goods from the pantry had been given out, so we didn't have any rice to throw, but I did find a jar of dried beans for soup, so I threw those at them instead. Hey, it was all we had and I couldn't let them leave without something!  If I'd had a couple of weeks warning, I could have probably gone to the courthouse and gotten a temporary county license to perform the ceremony since I was ordained online a while back!  I'm a one woman wedding chapel, y'all!  If you ever need a wedding in a hurry, just let me know.  I can hook you up!  I will also throw beans at you, but that's just a bonus. :)

2) Sadly, our pastor's mother passed away on Friday.  I never got to meet her, but he'd told me stories about her and she seemed like a really hip lady.  She'd been bedridden for years after a botched back surgery almost killed her.  I feel so bad for the pastor but he seems to be holding up well.  He reminds me a lot of my dad after my own grandmother passed away.  I hope he'll take some time to rest and recoup over the next couple of weeks.  Sorrow is exhausting, and he isn't the kind of person to sit still and rest, but I hope he will at least try.  Trying to tell someone like that to take some time off is pretty much an exercise in futility, but I did anyway.  Got to keep everyone sane around here, you know.

Steve and I went to her viewing last night and there were a lot of people there.  It was very confusing!  Instead of the whole family standing in a receiving line, they were just in little groups in the chapel, and every time we would walk over to talk to the people we knew, someone would slide in front of us and start a long conversation with the family member.  It was borderline rude, although I know they didn't mean to be that way.  I also got the stink eye from some of those denim-skirted-bun-head ladies while we were there.  I guess because I was wearing slacks and makeup, I don't know.  Personally, I don't think Jesus cares what I wear as long as I'm decent, and I certainly made sure to be!  Had I known I'd get snurled at, though, I would have gone with the first thing I tried on, which was a dress I hadn't worn in years that turned out to be so low cut in the front that it went past indecent and all the way to hilarious!  I refuse to be shamed for my clothes by anyone wearing a denim skirt. Don't test me.

3) This lady at my church is a fantastic cook and she's always bringing me food.  I can say I'm not hungry, and no thank you, and regardless I'll have a plate of something in my hand in less than 15 minutes. If I was stronger, I could just not eat it, but you guys, that woman can COOK.  Everything she makes is delicious and I am helpless.  I'd already had breakfast when she came in for the ladies prayer meeting this morning, and she asked if I wanted anything. I told her no. She did not accept that answer. I have just finished a slice of quiche and some kind of barbecued sausage and I think I'm so full I might die. I regret nothing, and everything.  I'd do it again.  Help me.

4) You know, I've always had this ability to kind of read people.  It kind of freaks people out, because some folks think it's supernatural or something, but really, it's just about paying attention. Anyone can do it if they are interested enough to try.  Honestly, I wish I was much better at it, but as it is, I do alright. At least I used to do alright. Anyway, being able to read people is useful, because if you can do that, you aren't surprised very often by what they do.  That is comforting in a way.  But lately I've come to realize that there are some people who I should be completely in tune with, that never, ever do what I think they will anymore.  I don't know if it's time or distance, or if I just don't spend enough time actually with the person, or if my brain is broken somehow, but it's really frustrating!  I'll be the first to admit that it's an inexact science, this reading people, and that sometimes it's more of wishful thinking situation where you think "Oh, if they answer this question *this way* that would be a perfect response." However, I've been right more often than not in the past, but now...even Steve is surprising me lately, and with a few glaring exceptions, I'm pretty sure I had him pegged.  It's weird and frustrating and I need to get my vibe fixed soon before all you wonderful, crazy people drive me insane.

NOPE

I took that last post down.  It bothered me more than I realized and now I'm not happy I wrote it.

HOWEVER...I've thought about it and since it was such a long time ago, I'm not going to let the muggles get me down.

Instead, I'm going to post a picture of a bunch of puppies.

It's not even otter worthy!  

Everything about me is, and has always been, perfectly adequate. 

 I'm sure the puppies would agree. 

EVEN MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING!

1) I'm not sure how much I actually want to write about stuff, or how much I want to procrastinate doing my job.  I have a feeling that it's mostly about procrastinating.  It's always about that, really. :)

2) This past Saturday, Steve and I went with the church's youth group to play paintball!  It was so much fun!  I'd never played before, but Steve had gone with them for the past couple of years and told me how much he enjoyed it.  So, for once, I offered to attend a youth event without either being tricked, or guilted, into it.  Aren't you proud of me?  Hahahaha!  Don't be. Like I was going to give up a chance to shoot kids with non-lethal projectiles.  Please. 

Steve and I drove out to Athens to meet everyone at the paintball range.  There were 11 kids, and 5 "adults" there that day.  Our first course was out in the woods, and I didn't realize our teams had to split up and start from one point, so I was hiding in the trees for a while before someone found me.  I didn't last long in that first scenario.  I got pegged in the thigh by one of the kids.  By the way, getting shot by paint balls HURTS.  I'm not sure how close I was to the person who got me out, but I now have the weirdest red bruise on my leg.  It is a perfect circle of regular skin surrounded by a splat mark of red.  I didn't find it until I got home, but it has been two days and it hasn't faded completely yet.  I kind of hope it stays.  It's a really interesting bruise!  I'd take a picture, but I only share pictures of my thighs with very, very important people, sorry.  So few people have ever seen them that there are rumors that I don't even have them.  True Story.  Ha!

We moved to the "Town" and spent the rest of our time there.  The town is a post-apocalyptic looking area of shacks, an old van, and stuff you can hide behind.  I did much better on this range, but in the first game, I got shot in the head.  Oh, dear Lord in heaven, that was unpleasant. It wasn't that it hurt, although it did, but that it hit at just the perfect angle on my mask that the paint squirted into my hair, and into my eye at the same time. My eye didn't even have time to close, so I saw through a haze of yellow goo, and when I raised my mask to wipe my face, I got reprimanded by our referee.  I had to wait until we were back in the safe zone before I could get the goop out of my eye, and my hair stayed greasy until I could take a bath. Gross.  I did much better during the rest of our games, and I even managed to shoot the only person in our group who plays with any regularity, twice.  I made him bleed by accident.  I don't know how, because paint balls aren't supposed to do that, but he showed me his arm and there was a big splotch of dried blood where I got him.  Oops.

We picked up 4 stray people to join our group, and they all were very good and had their own equipment.  They got most of the people out, I think.  Anyway, it was fun and I want to go again! 

When I got home, my eye had started to hurt, so I took out my contact lens to clean it.  It was stained yellow and I couldn't get the goop off of it and I had to open a new pack.  Boo.  My eye still isn't right, but at least everything isn't tinted anymore.

3)  I had the weirdest dream this weekend.  I dreamed I was an elementary school teacher and our entire school was taken hostage.  I don't think anyone was killed, but they wouldn't let us leave.  I think the point was that they were going to brainwash the children into converting to whatever religion or group these people were with (I'm assuming ISIS guys, but who knows?  Just bad guys is all I remember.) and they made the teachers stay with them, threatening that if we left or escaped, they'd start killing children.  It was a bad, bad dream.  I don't remember a lot of what happened, but I know that another teacher and I tried to sabotage the bad guys, but what we did was ineffective.  That took the heart out of me, and I just gave up and complied with whatever they told me to do.  That was the worst part, that sense of defeat and not being able to do anything to fight back.  In the weird way that dreams have, I was aware that days were passing and I couldn't get away from it and I was losing hope. 

I actually woke up during that part.  I didn't wake up in a panic, like you'd think, but I woke up feeling awful and sad and depressed.  I kept having to remind myself that it was just a dream.  I stayed awake for about 30 minutes before I fell asleep again, and I was dumped right back into the same dream!  If I'd been woken from an awesome dream, that would have never happened!  At any rate, once I was back in the dream, I was ready to fight my way out!  My problem was that I was very bad at escaping.  I don't remember exactly what I did, but in the dream, I was killed.  Instead of waking up again, the dream reset like a video game!  I kept waking up back where I started, and it was so freaking frustrating!  I tried to escape 4 different times, and all four times I got "killed" in the dream.  I finally woke up again when my alarm went off, but I have to say, that was one of the weirdest dreams I've ever had, and that is saying something.  I guess I need to put my Zombie Apocalypse plan on hold and brush up on my terrorist escape plans. 

Now I just have to learn to fly a helicopter.

MORE RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Yeah, I don't know why I'm writing so much these days.  Let's just accept it for now and it will probably sort itself out.  Don't judge, I'm alone a lot!  I have to talk to someone! God help you all if I ever try Podcasting.

2) I finally had to get rid of my red hair.  I loved it while it was still red, but the pinker it became, the weirder it looked.  If I was going for pink hair, that would have been fine, but it had started to look like I'd sprayed on Halloween color spray when I was underneath certain kinds of light.  I should probably say that I tried to get rid of my red hair, but even though I chose a color as close to my natural color as I could find, it didn't completely cover the red, which is weird because the red dye wasn't supposed to be permanent, but the brown dye was.  Oh well, it's darker, at least, and it's hair...so...it'll do what it wants to do in time.  My only real issue with it is that now all of my pretty white hairs are gone.

Next time I have a bad day, I'll just go get a tattoo.  I don't think it will last as long as the dye!

3) in 2013 I attended a self defense class.  I wrote about it, but if you haven't read it and would like to, you can do so here.

Not long after that class was over, I saw an ad where I could order a new, not yet released, product which was marketed as "Smart Jewelry."   It was supposed to be a fitness tracker, like a Fitbit, but with a personal safety element to it.  So, let's say I was alone, running (stop laughing) down a trail or something and someone jumped out at me and tried to grab me.  If I were wearing this thing I could press its button for three seconds and it would send an alarm to a person I designated as my safety contact.  That person would have downloaded and app on their phone that would send an alert that said I was in trouble.  It would show my location (with a GPS locator) and ask if they needed to call 911. The tracker could also be placed in different pieces of jewelry sold by the company, so, for example,  if you were on a date and things got hinky in a way that put you in danger, you could press the button and alert someone without being really obvious about what you were doing.  I joked to a friend that I go on so many out of town dates these days that I needed one of these just for that reason alone! Haha! (I'm sure Steve would not run to my rescue for that.)

Anyway, fresh off of that self defense course, I was all in for ordering the thing.  I work in a place where I don't always feel safe, and unfortunately, sometimes just going places alone isn't safe for me because I'm a woman.  Granted, I'm a woman who will do everything in her power to rip out your spine if you try to hurt me, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't appreciate back up if needed.  I also wanted the fitness tracker, since my other one had to be returned.  I actually wanted the fitness tracker more than the alarm, but the combo appealed to me. So I ordered it, with the promise that I'd receive the kit by the next spring when it was released.  Unfortunately, the company that was making it couldn't get their act together.  Either the programming wasn't getting completed, or the jewelry things weren't getting produced.  It was frustrating.  At any rate, I could have canceled my order, but I chose to stick it out and wait. 

Well, I finally got it last week, much, much later than promised.  However, I was informed that the programming was never completed for the fitness tracker, but it could still function as a security alert.  FINE, I GUESS.  UGH!  One other function that the thing (I'm not using it's name, because I don't want other people to buy it and I don't want anyone to come to my page in a Google search) does is alert you if you get a call or text from people you designate on a list.  So if I'm in a situation where answering my phone would be inappropriate or rude, if any of those people called it would vibrate and I'd know to excuse myself and call them back.  So I download the app and set about setting up my preferences on my phone.  I only had two people I wanted to designate as safety contacts (my mom and Steve, who are probably the two who'd care the most if I was being murdered...and maybe not even Steve, but he'd already agreed to do it) because not every friend you have wants to be responsible for your life and/or well being.  However, I did want to populate my list of approved callers so I'd be alerted if THEY called.  Only when I started adding names to that list, the dumb app sent out text messages asking people to download the app - and for all I knew was telling them that I was in danger. I also managed to accidentally set off the safety alarm, which scared my mom.  So I had to contact people and let them know they didn't have to download anything and that I wasn't currently being assaulted or murdered.  Now I'm too afraid to actually wear the device in case I accidentally set it off and have a SWAT team called to my destination.  At this point, I think it would be less stressful to carry a gun. 

4) There was something else I was going to talk about, but it took me about two hours to type that last part out in between doing work and getting sidetracked. I'm tired of thinking about myself. Whoever you are reading this, you just go on and have yourself a nice day. Thanks for stopping by! :)

WEIRD

For the past several days I have had a very weird feeling.  It worries me.

There are many of you who have little patience with my "weird feelings" and think they're silly, but you don't have to believe they are real. I know they are. I don't know what it's about and I don't know who it's about, but I feel like something has happened to someone important to me and I can't do anything about it.  That probably doesn't make much sense, I know.

The closest example I can come up with is this, and it might not be universal enough to make anyone else understand:  If you've ever had anyone close to you pass away, there is a point when you are trying to wrap your head around what happened and you want to fix it, but know you can't.  It's incredibly frustrating, because you know the situation is completely out of your hands, but you keep trying to think of ways it could have been avoided, or reasons it happened, or ways you can change it, but you know that there is nothing you can do. You realize that everything in your life has changed somehow and it wasn't a change you wanted.  It's a bad feeling, but one that eventually fades because your rational mind takes over and helps you to work through it.

Only in this case I do not know what is happening or to whom it is happening to, and the feeling isn't going away!  I do know how crazy this whole thing sounds, because I have no reasons to think anything is seriously wrong with anyone important to me. Everyone seems fine, or acting as if they are. That doesn't mean stuff isn't going on that I don't know about, of course, but I'd like to think anyone felt they could talk to me if they were having a problem. I'd also normally worry that maybe I'd done something to someone that hurt them or made them mad, but I know that isn't the case.

Maybe it's all the craziness going on in the world and I just want to keep everyone close and make sure they are safe and happy. Who knows?  I just want everyone to be OK, and if you aren't, I can try to help or maybe point you in the direction of someone who can.

I know I can be annoyingly huggy, and sometimes I can be a bit judgy (but I promise once that's out of the way I can be full-on sympathetic) but if you are out there reading this and something has happened, or even if you've done something stupid and think you are beyond sympathy/help, it'll be OK.  Even if you think it won't be.  You can talk to me, or if you don't want to do that, please talk to someone at least.

Anyway...so...weird or not, I hope everyone is OK, and if you aren't, I hope you will be.

Of course, if everyone is fine and no one is having any problems, the feeling may be caused by the bad Red Rope licorice I ate on Monday.  Either way...

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) So, sort of good news from the pulmonologist!  He said nothing has changed with my CT scans, so my next one won't be until next year!  Woo-Hoo! He told me that if the next scans show either no change or improvements (obviously) then he'll know the nodules are benign.  Yay!  The only bad thing about my scan was that he said it showed I had possible pneumonia activity in my left lung, but that with my "history of coughing" he didn't think it was anything important.  I honestly don't know what he means by history of coughing, because I haven't been coughing, nor have I had a chronic or even persistant cough in years and years.  Who knows?  It does hurt to breathe on that side of my chest, but I don't have any other signs of pneumonia, so no worries until there are worries to be had.  Woot! 

2) Someone shot our church!  No one was in it at the time, thank goodness. When I got to work yesterday, I saw a weird mark on one of the columns on the porch.  When I went out to see what it was, it was bullet damage. Well, that's what I thought when I looked at it and I am a world renowned forensic tech, after all.  Haha!  I showed the spot to the pastor and he agreed that it was a bullet hole.  We had to file a police report, (and the cop also agreed it was a bullet hole, so obviously my talents are wasted as a secretary) because it could tie to a crime down the line.  It's a crappy thing to happen, to be sure, but on the bright side, now our broken window has a friend! :)  Silver linings!

I named it Steve McQueen! 

3) Steve has informed me that his company is having a Christmas party.  I'm already starting to worry about the things I'm going to knock over. It won't be in anyone's home this time, and hopefully whatever I manage to destroy will be covered by some kind of damage deposit.  Also, the invitation says that it is "Festive Attire."  WTF does that mean?  Do I dress like an elf?  People think I'm kidding when I say I don't know how to dress myself, but I'm not.  I don't have a local girlfriend to tell me if I am appropriate, and Steve wouldn't care if I walked out of the house in a fitted sheet as long as all of my personal bits were covered.  

Sigh.  I'll Google it.

At any rate, I am determined about one thing: I will go to, and leave, this party without awkwardly hugging a caterer this time.

4) Speaking of awkward...  I was talking to someone the other day and made a kind of off color joke at my own expense.  I do that a lot, and I don't know why. It's just how I do. Anyway, right after I made said joke, we got interrupted and our conversation ended before I got to explain that I was only joking.  I'd like to believe that the person would know realize I was only joking, but I can't be completely sure.  The only way I'll know is if I bring it up and explain, but I'd rather not, because I'm afraid they'd think it was a case of protesting too much or something.  I need to stop talking to people who don't know my humor.

5) It's been almost a year since Butler died and I'm still not quite adjusted.  People keep asking if we are going to get another dog soon, but I don't think I could stand it yet.  Well, we have other important reasons not to want to get a dog right now, but a lot of it has to do with fact that I still miss my other dogs too much it would feel like we were getting rebound dogs. That is stupid, I know.  I don't like to feel things.  It makes everything too complicated.  If I could turn off feelings, lots of things would be easier.

6) Last week Steve had his concert at the Host of Christmas Past in Fayetteville, TN. The band did great and we had a lot of fun, but the thing that stuck out for me was seeing a volunteer fireman almost melt his own face off!  I was sitting near the line of food booths while Steve's bad was playing and I heard a BOOM.  When I looked over, I saw a man brushing at his face with some other guys standing around looking concerned.  The sleeve was almost blown off of his shirt, and he had a flash burn across his forehead.  He had been trying to light a propane heater underneath a tank of chicken stew and I don't know what happened, but it caused a fireball to hit him in the upper body.  Luckily he seemed to be ok, except for maybe losing an eyebrow.  It could have been a lot worse!

I'm so very, very tired of all the bad that is going on in the world.  It's not like it's a new thing, obviously, because evil has been around since the beginning of time, but it just seems like the yuck is getting bigger and uglier and more violent every day.  Maybe it only looks that way because we're on a 24 news cycle and every time you turn on the television, or open the internet, or turn on the radio all of the bad stuff is just staring you in the face (or the ear...because radio.)  I don't see how journalists can deal with the onslaught of it all, since they are the ones immersed in it until they can move on to other things.  They are much stronger people than I will ever be, I guess.

And it isn't going to stop.  Not ever.  It might not be as big or bad as it is right now, but it will always be there, running like an infection underneath the skin of life as we know it.  There will always be people who have ideals that they are willing to die for, and to kill other people for.  We can pretend that world peace is achievable, but that isn't how mankind is hardwired.  There will always be someone who MUST BE RIGHT at all costs and they will stop at nothing to grab hold of whatever power they think comes along with that rightness.

I don't know which scares me the most at this point: the fact that we are faced with the possibility of someone blowing us up or shooting us every time we go into a crowded, public area, or that a lot of people are just resigned to the fact that this is normal life, now.  It's disheartening.

Last night, after the day was over and I was lying in bed thinking of all of the things going on in the world, all I wanted was to be able to sit next to someone, hold their hand, not talk, and just feel safe for a while. I think maybe everyone could use that.  If you get that chance, you should.

AN ADDENDUM

I've been thinking about the last entry that I wrote and decided I'm not embarrassed anymore.  In fact, as I thought, it didn't take long before I thought the whole thing was hilarious.

So here's what I'm going to do!

I'm going to order the filthiest thing I can afford from this messed up Tupperware party. 

I know she'll see the order, because she has to make sure the order is fulfilled to get credit for it.

Then, when she sees me at church, she will be the one who is uncomfortable!

Muahahahahahahaha! 

Of course, then I'll have to figure out what to do with whatever it is I order.  I don't know what that will be at this time. I guess I'll have to find someone to give it to! 

Christmas is about to get weird, y'all.

WTF, MATE?!

I just got a Facebook invite from a woman I go to church with for one of those online selling-things parties.

You've probably gotten an invitation for one of them before, for nail polish, or monogrammed bags or some such thing.  I don't usually participate in these things, mainly because I don't have the money to throw down on overpriced junk jewelry or iffy weight loss products.

But the invitation I just got wasn't for any of those things.  This lady invited me to a, uh...toy party.  An adult oriented toy party.

A lady from my church just invited me to an online sex toy party! Whaaaaaaa?!

OK, I'm not a prude and I don't have problems with people either having these parties nor buying things from these kinds of parties.  I'm not offended or anything like that.

But a lady from my church inviting me to something like this is weird...isn't it?  It's not just me?  Please tell me it isn't just me that finds that odd.

OK, let's say I "attend" this party (it's only online, so I wouldn't actually have to get face to face with a group of Southern Baptist ladies all discussing the merits of different sexy time stuff, thank God) and bought fuzzy handcuffs, sexy lingerie, or any of the plethora of things that vibrate, restrain or is described as "life-like?"*  I know how these online parties work!  You have to put in your name and address, and the person hosting this party would see the order!  She would know what I bought, and then she'd know too much!  She'd see me at church and know!

 I will let this cat demonstrate my initial reaction.

Look, I don't care what people do as long as it's consensual and enjoyed by both parties, but I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with anyone in my church family knowing what I kept in my personal "toy box." 

I'm sure that in about half an hour I'll find this hilarious.

* Yes, I know all of those things are available because I looked at the website.  I couldn't really believe that was what the invitation was for so I checked for myself.  I was wrong.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) I've been learning stuff!  It isn't important stuff, but it is interesting.

Did you know that Nabisco, the snack company, used to be known as the National Biscuit Company and the name Nabisco is just a short version of that?  I feel that that is probably common knowledge, but I didn't know and it is strangely interesting.

Did you know that the slogan "Don't Mess With Texas" was originally an anti-littering slogan?  I had no idea.

Ah, trivia. :)

2) I had a massive and completely unexpected anxiety attack last week.  It was terrible, and honestly, it hit me without warning while I was at home by myself.  I don't have them like that very often, thank goodness, but the ones when I'm alone are the worst because there is no one there to tell me I'm being dumb. I began questioning everything I'd done since I'd gotten home, which was stupid, because I hadn't done anything particularly out of the ordinary, but everything I'd done seemed really wrong. I finally emailed someone for help, and they told me I was being dumb. That helped. The anxiety attack passed, thank goodness. 

I really, really hate those things, and I know other people hate having to deal with me when I have them.  It's incredibly embarrassing.

3) Our 15th anniversary is tomorrow!  That's amazing to me for lots of reasons.  We were going to go on a trip, but that got cancelled.  In fact, I won't even get to see Steve for more than a couple of hours, if I'm even awake when he leaves and comes home. He's working and taking an evening class, so I guess I'll do something fun by myself! Maybe. I really have no idea. It actually seems kind of pathetic now that I've written it out loud. (Wait, is that a thing?) Maybe I'll just do laundry. I'm always doing laundry.

4) Why is it that I always want to do the absolute worst things for me?  I swear, I make terrible decisions!  I don't mean to be self destructive, but I can't seem to help it!  I always forget I'm supposed to be eating better, so I'll catch myself with a cupcake in my face before I think "Oh, this is not a good idea!"  I'll keep putting off going to the gym for one reason or another, even though I know I should go, and I'm constantly doing stuff that makes me feel like I'm a 7 year old in a grown up person's body.  I think the little Jiminy Cricket voice in my head has died or something.

Oh, well, at least I'm not a danger to others! :)

5) Do you remember the scene in Home Alone, when Kevin orders a pizza while using clips from the movie (You know, the "Keep the change, ya filthy animal" movie) so he'd sound like an adult?  He scared the pizza guy off by playing the scene with the gunfire.  Why did that pizza guy not call the police?! This has been bothering me.  If a person delivering a pizza is shot at, or thinks he is, why wouldn't he tell someone!  Kevin would have been found a lot sooner, and the whole thing with the burglars wouldn't have happened.  Of course, the movie would have been 20 minutes long.  I've overthought this.  I know, I know...

6)  There was more, but I don't remember.

A DREAM

Last night I had a dream that I was hanging out with a friend of mine from high school that I haven't seen in years.  Well, actually, I dreamed we were on a furniture dolly being pulled behind a car, but we were able to talk and everything.  Shut up, dreams are weird.

Anyway, after we got to where we were going (and I don't remember where that was) he handed me a piece of paper with a list of the nicest compliments about me on it.  I can not for the life of me remember what any of those compliments were, but I remember that they made me very happy.  I don't think this particular friend would ever say anything quite that nice about me in real life unless I died and he was feeling nostalgic or something. Who knows?

While I was thinking about that dream this morning, I remembered that when I was a teenager, our youth group minister gathered us together one night for some event and gave everyone a piece of paper with our name at the top of it.  We passed it to everyone else in the group, and each of us anonymously wrote one thing we liked about that person on the paper.  Once it circulated around, we got our own pages back so that we could read what everyone wrote.  I kept that piece of paper in my wallet from that night until I'd been married almost 10 years, and I only put it away because my new wallet didn't have a place I could safely keep it.  I suppose it sounds really narcissistic (oooh, spelled that right on the first try!) to keep a list of compliments about yourself within easy reach, but I didn't keep it for that reason.

As I got older, I  sometimes felt (and still feel, at times) like there was nothing good or admirable about me. I didn't really do any of the things I thought I'd do, for one reason or another. Not that life has been bad, but I sometimes felt like I didn't take as much advantage of it as I should have. Especially now with social media, we get to see how awesome everyone is and everything they accomplish on a daily basis.  I know that we can't compare ourselves to those people realistically, because for every degree they earn, or every promotion they get, or every trip to some exotic or amazing place they post online, there are just as many disappointments or lost opportunities that they don't tell us all about.  Sometimes it's hard to remember that we are seeing only what people want us to see, and it's difficult not to judge ourselves against that. Well, it's difficult for me. I don't know about you.

So really, I kept that piece of paper because I wanted to remind myself that there were people out there who liked me and thought well of me, even if they never said it out loud.  Even though I'd lost touch with those people a while ago, at one time, even at my teenagery worst, there were people who could see good things in me, even when I couldn't.  I think maybe I had that dream to remind myself that it's still true.  Even if I'm not particularly successful, or doing really awesome things that I can post onto Facebook or whatever, there are people out there who can still see the good things in me even when I can't see them myself.

In case your interested, this is what my paper had listed on it.  I will spell everything correctly, though!  Haha!

-She's Nice
-She's good looking  (-Oy Vey)
-She's a good friend
-She's sweet
-Sweet disposition
-She's got a good sense of humor
-Bestest Friend
-Her
-She's always perky!
-She's sincere
-Caring
-Kind person

You know, now that I read that list again, I'm not altogether certain they were talking about me after all!  ; )